I really don’t know clouds at all

Joni Mitchell, a folk singer from the 70s, once sung that she didn’t know clouds at all.

Yet, there is a growing number of computer users who have heard of cloud computing, but don’t know much about it.

This week, Microsoft introduced Office 365. A lot has been written and there has been a lot of speculation on its capabilities even though the software is in beta testing.

Beta testing, in software, is where a few clients will get to use the software and try to find all of the glitches before it gets shipped to customers.

From my view, the new product is designed for novices in using the cloud. These are people who have not used another cloud application. Google has a documents sharing file that anyone with one of their email accounts can store a Power Point, a spread sheet or a letter.

Yet, even this well known product has glitches. Sometimes, Google docs will not store a presentation properly. Or, someone sends a document for review to someone without a Gmail account, requiring them to get an account to view a document.

Preliminary reports about Office 365 show a similar trend. If a company operates their back end software with Linux or doesn’t have the latest and newest versions of Microsoft, there are going to be tech issues.

If you are wondering about cloud computing, there’s a lot written on it. However, if you are a small to medium sized business owner who wants to sit down with your computer support team, here’s a couple of questions I would want answered.

Question #1. How much will it cost? Google provides a free version of their product, but if you have an enterprise level development, they charge for technical support. Microsoft has a variable price schedule for Office 365 with basic prices starting at $6.

Question #2. What are the training issues to roll it out? One of the most overlooked aspects of any business is the cost of training the staff on how to use a new software application. Lot of technology salesman will tell you that a new process will save money, but they overlook the transition costs.

Question #3. What type of customer support will be provided? Again, I would want to get the name of other customers who are heading to the cloud to hear from them about the tech support provided when needed.

With so much online buzz behind cloud computing, many will want to jump into adapting it. However, true conversion to a new process can take time and effort. Here’s hoping that business decision makers will consider these questions when addressing their technology upgrades.